


i'm the only one on your a.m. radio

by originality (smallredboy)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Conspiracy Theories, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24170482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/originality
Summary: Ramiel and Jacinto have been friends for years, but they've drifted apart because of Ramiel's obsession with conspiracy theories. When Jacinto finds out he's right, they connect once again.
Relationships: Ramiel/Jacinto
Kudos: 1
Collections: Prompt Table Challenge: Musical Imaginations





	i'm the only one on your a.m. radio

**Author's Note:**

> **musical imaginations @ creativechallenges:** Touch-Tone Telephone - Lemon Demon  
> also for a weekly prompt in a writing discord server i'm in.
> 
> enjoy!

It was his fourth time getting called by Ramiel that day.

Jacinto was exhausted. They were good friends once, before everything went downhill — before Ramiel started getting so, so into all that conspiracy theory nonsense. He understood that he was unstable; Hell, he was one of the few people to have visited him when he got sent to an inpatient care facility (which was Hell, he was sure, with the way Ramiel seemed to pale every time anyone even mentioned hospitals or psychiatric wards). But it was still insane, and he was sure Ramiel was aware of it.

He sighed. He sometimes wanted to block Ramiel's number and to be done with it. But still, a part of him still held onto the fond memories he had with him from years ago, before his first big psychotic break. They were good friends back then. Now he just had his nice cushy radio job, and Ramiel was… doing something. He was unsure what he worked in, all in all.

The message left by Ramiel after he didn't answer echoed through his changing room.

"Hey, Jacinto! Come on, pick up the phone, I know you're there. You just have to hear me out on this. I _finally_ got the threads together! I've got an unified theory!" He laughed victoriously. "If I make it through tonight, Jacinto, everyone's gonna hear me out! You've got to come; you'll see what I mean. Come to my place, come on!"

_Beep._

He put his phone down. He sighed.

He knew there wasn't anything he could do to help Ramiel. He just hoped he took his medication and that he broke out of his delusions. Sometimes he almost wanted to break into a government facility just to tell Ramiel that there was _nothing there_ — sometimes he thought about how that would make Ramiel huff, scoff and say that he was being _paid_ to pretend there was nothing there. That he knew what was there.

He decided to take a walk, away from town. To see if he saw anything interesting as night fell around him. He knew he wouldn't— it was a small town in Nevada, and nothing ever happened there or on the outskirts of it. The only remarkable thing was the tourists from miles and miles away, stopping by before heading the closest they could get to that damned Area 51.

There was nothing in all of Nevada, nothing strange that could not be explained off. And, well — the government had always been shitty and weird and secretive (he had read enough articles about MK-ULTRA to know that). That didn't mean aliens were in the mix. It just meant that the US government was weird and secretive, as it always had been, and as it would always be.

*

Among the terror of his encounter, all Jacinto could think of was about how Ramiel had been right all along. 

It was a strange thing, to know that someone he had thought of as crazy for so long was right, the proof right in his face. It wasn't sticky notes stuck to the wall any more, red lines uniting them into one single thread; it was truth, tangible and seen by him. He drew in a shaky breath and got his phone, silenced it to make sure he wouldn't alert those people of his presence.

It was terrifying, to see that corpse of that _creature_ lying there, with its long limbs and bright, soulless eyes. It was not from this world. He didn't know from where it was, but it was from somewhere away from there, away from him, away from Ramiel and away from everything, everything else.

When he got out of the scene, a twig cracked underneath his dress shoes. He felt himself freeze as the men dissecting the alien immediately straightened up, their boots heavy against the grass that covered their operation, the operating table not much bigger than three or four feet in length.

"There! There is an outsider there! Get them!"

He ran faster than he ever had in his life.

*

Ramiel was used to not sleeping. Insomnia kept him up, defensive and ready to harm anyone who walked into his apartment unannounced. No one had yet, but he knew they would. They always did, eventually — it was the price of _knowing_. Of knowing more than normal people were supposed to. The chosen few got to know— he was not one of them, but he worked hard at getting to, until the lies unraveled before his very eyes.

There was frantic knocking at his door and he got up. He grabbed the knife he always had under his pillow and looked through the peep in the door.

What he didn't expect to see was Jacinto, the man he had been trying to contact with his findings for months upon months, shaking like a leaf in front of his door. He opened it.

"What —"

"You were right," he said, voice shaking as he pushed Ramiel away to get into his apartment. "You were right. I — I _saw_ them."

His eyes widened. "You _saw_ them?"

Jacinto was pale, paler than he had ever seen him, his brown skin with a green tint over it, like he was sick. He helped him over to the couch, sitting him down. His head hurt just at the thought— no one had ever entertained his, um, _delusions_ as his shrink had called them, before. Even with his anti-psychotic medication he did not stop believing them. He would never stop believing them.

"Yeah," he agreed shakily. "I… I saw a group of men, um, dissecting —" He coughed. " _Something_. They heard me, but it was dark, I don't think they made out my face… I lost them. I think."

"What were they dissecting?" Ramiel pressed. "What did it look like?"

"It looked like fuckin' E.T., Ramiel!" he exclaimed. A hysterical laugh left his full lips, and he braced his hand against his knee. "Long… long limbs. It was dead. But it was clearly not some sort of sick toy. It had entrails and fluids and… things. They were just dissecting it out in the — in the open. I do not know why. It doesn't make any sense."

"Do you want some, um, do you want some tea?" Ramiel offered. He didn't know what to do. He always had plans about how to uncover it all by himself, but he was too much of a coward to follow through. Jacinto listening to him and finding out that it was all true was not in his plans.

"Tea would… tea would work," he said. "I, um, green, if you have it. One spoonful of sugar."

"Of course," he said, going over to his kitchen a mere feet away to start making it. 

After a few seconds, Jacinto added, "I took pictures."

He braced himself against the counter to not fall. "You took pictures," he echoed.

"Yes. I can… I can show them to you, when you're done with the, um, tea."

"Of course," he said. He finished making tea and offered one of the steaming cups to Jacinto, who took it and took a sip from it immediately, not minding the heat in the least. 

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Jacinto took his phone, unlocked it and went to his gallery.

"What the fuck," he mumbled softly.

"What's up?"

"They're all corrupted. The files."

"What?" He blinked. "Lemme see."

He grabbed Jacinto's phone. Indeed, the files were corrupted, not allowing him to see. He wondered for a brief second if all of this was some sick joke to fan the flames of his beliefs, but it couldn't be. Jacinto wasn't like that from what he had gathered of their few and far in-between meetings before this point; beside, it would be hard to fake the ill tint to his cheeks or the way his limbs and voice shook. 

No, this was very real.

"One of them isn't corrupted," Ramiel said. He opened it. "It's because it was too blurry for… whatever it is… to pick up on it." He looked at the picture; he could see the men, the creature, opened up in between them. It was small and some sort of light-blue color, but the details were masked among all the motion blur. 

"Do you think the files were, um, corrupted by the… the creature? Like it was too much for the phone to handle, somehow?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't… have _any_ idea what is going on now." He saw himself as an expert, back when all of it was his theories and his beliefs, scribblings on his notebooks. But he was not so sure now. "It feels… strange. To actually have proof in my hands."

"I assume it would," Jacinto said. "I'm sorry for doubting you."

"Don't worry about it," he said immediately. "I'm, um, I look crazy to anyone normal. To anyone who was not _chosen_ to know. So I don't hold it to heart whenever people laugh at me."

Jacinto nodded, still taking sips of his tea. He looked slightly less ill now.

*

Jacinto had learned that Ramiel was still the same man of always, even through his veil of psychotic symptoms, half of which were not even psychotic symptoms and just him seeing through the lies of the government. Aliens existed, that was a fact now for the two of them, not just a theory or a weird belief to hold onto.

He was also realizing just how handsome he was.

Ramiel's features were sharp and defined, nice cheekbones among his dark brown skin that was nicely lit by the sun, with a very warm, yellowish undertone. His tight curls were perfectly taken care of into a cropped hairstyle, an earring dangling from his left ear. His honey brown eyes lit up whenever he spoke about his beliefs, whenever he talked about the games of his childhood— he was the same as always, but more handsome and more _right_.

Jacinto tried to keep up life as normal. He tried to keep going on his radio show, talking with people, putting on songs that were requested by the public, all those nice things he used to do with ease. But he was worried they would find him— that those men who had seen him seeing them, would find him if they listened to his radio show, if they looked up Jacinto Espinoza. He was scared of the possibility, nightmares of them taking them into some shady van stirring him awake every other night.

He knew it would not happen. Among the dark, dark night of that fateful date, he knew the possibilites of him being recognized were slim to none. But he still found himself going to Ramiel's place.

"I can't… calm down," he said. "I think I need to, be here with you for a while."

"I don't have a spare room," Ramiel said.

Blush crept up to his cheeks, but he ignored it. He tried to stave off the little part in his brain that wanted him to ask to sleep in the same bed as Ramiel. He did not want to do that to him— what if he was wildly uncomfortable? Sure, they were both gay, but…

"I can sleep on the couch," he said.

"The couch is terribly uncomfortable," he replied. "Besides, if you're having nightmares, it will do you no good. I have a lot more nightmares in there than in my bed."

"Then what am I supposed to do? I have nightmares at my house, too!"

Ramiel looked at him, and he looked right back. They both knew they were thinking the exact same thing, but they didn't want to voice it, give it a name, to what was happening. It was the fact they were both aware of something most people were not. People like them weren't supposed to know about it. But they did. They _knew_.

"You could spend the night," Ramiel said. "Not in the living room."

They did not give it a name. They refused to.

Jacinto smiled and took a step toward Ramiel's bedroom. It was awfully small, the bed even more so, but they could make themselves fit in there some way or another.

"Of course," he said. 

It felt like coming home, to accept a truth long ignored and unknown to him. It felt like coming home, to wrap around Ramiel as the blankets kept them warm. It felt like coming home, to know what was happening in the world, but to know not to worry as long as he was in his best friend's arms.


End file.
